Page2RRS

• 06 Nov 2009 08:32

  THE TYRANNY OF THE LARGE NUMBER! Connolly uses a very large number to hide a tiny goal: FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 6, 2009 Digby remembers/We do too: Ten years ago this very week, Congress repealed the Glass-Steagall Act, by giant margins in the House and the Senate. Digby does an excellent job of remembering. To read her report, just click here. We’re not experts on this matter. But it seems to be conventional wisdom: Repeal of Glass-Steagall opened the floodgates to the financial meltdown which hit home last year. By most accounts, repeal of Glass-Steagall was a major event. We thought we’d join Digby in remembering! In our case, we thought you might want to recall what Establishment Pundits were discussing in the week when repeal occurred. Simply put, they were discussing Naomi Wolf—and earth tones, and alpha males. And, of course, oral sex. And the way Al Gore had hired a woman to teach him to be a man: On Sunday, October 31, 1999, Time released a news report which said that Wolf had been advising Candidate Gore and the Gore campaign. On a rational basis, it’s hard to imagine why this utterly underwhelming news should have provoked a discussion at all. But within the broken-souled world of Establishment Washington, this underwhelming report produced an astonishing “Month of Wolf”—one of the smuttiest, phoniest, dumbest discussions the modern, corporate-owned pundit corps has ever let loose on the world. Those votes in the House and the Senate took place on Thursday, November 4. By that date, Establishment Pundits were in Day 4 of their smut-laden takedown of Wolf—and, of course, of Candidate Gore, the real target of their witch trial. On November 5, newspapers reported Glass-Steagall’s repeal (see Digby). But so what? In the Washington Post, Ann Gerhart was explaining something much more significant. She was explaining why a book reviewer had spotted beauty products in Wolf’s bathroom back at the start of the decade: GERHART (11/5/99): Now we know that was because she finally had gotten in touch with her inner slut, according to her third book, “Promiscuities: The Secret Struggle for Womanhood,” which [reported] her own coming-of-age experiences. It still shocks the conscience to read it today. No, Wolf didn’t say, in that superb book, that she “finally had gotten in touch with her inner slut.” But by now, the pundit corps was bristling with claims that Wolf “has very detailed programs on how a woman can get in touch with herinner slut” (the disgraceful Christina Hoff Sommers, Hardball, 11/1/99) or that Wolf had “urged women to release their inner sluts” (the constantly-loathsome Maureen Dowd, New York Times, 11/3/99). The phrase “inner slut” doesn’t appear in Wolf’s superb book, but it got big play in the Washington Post, helping fuel a feeding frenzy which persisted in the “press” for a month. The smutty trashing of Naomi Wolf was really a trashing of Gore, of course. The month-long trashing played a large role in the way George Bush reached the White House. (For the record, Bush and his campaign played no role in this month-long display. Nor does it seem that the RNC played a leading role. This was a “mainstream” baby.) This was one of the ugliest, dumbest campaigns the Establishment Pundit Corps ever produced. It was happening ten years ago, as Glass-Steagall was being repealed. By the way, we know of only two major figures who spoke up in Wolf’s defense: William Kristol and William Safire. Not one of your fiery liberal heroes dared open his or her trap to speak For our five-part report on this gruesome episode, see THE DAILY HOWLER, 3/10/03. (Though we didn’t get to it all.) And by the way: Promiscuities is a superb book, full of deeply soulful thoughts about the ways boys and girls—and men and women—struggle to relate to each other. Wolf’s account of her first high school love is pure Grade A soul gold. Crackers! For that very reason, it had to be dragged through the mud. In Promiscuities, Wolf discusses the way the venturesome girl will be reviled as a slut. The “press corps” worked to make her a prophet—as Glass-Steagall was being repealed, ten years ago this week. George Bush? He ended up in the White House. Perhaps you already heard. THE TYRANNY OF THE LARGE NUMBER: On the front page of Wednesday’s Washington Post, Ceci Connolly examined a serious health-reform topic. Her headline seemed to go where rubber meets road: Health bills too timid on cutting costs, experts sayProposals make only trims where broader changes are needed, critics argue Connolly examined the way proposed health reform would effect the costs of health care. But uh-oh! Note the conceptual framework which was lodged right in her opening paragraphs CONNOLLY (11/6/09): Democrats in Congress are embracing the spirit of President Obama's call to slow the runaway rise of health-care costs but are shying away from some of the most aggressive techniques for achieving that. Instead of revolutionizing how care is delivered and paid for, experts say, the legislation being shaped takes a cautious approach to reining in costs. "The bills are directionally correct, but they're not going far enough," said George Halvorson, chairman and chief executive of Kaiser Permanente and the author of "Health Care Will Not Reform Itself." In years past, policymakers tried taming health-care growth with price controls—in government reimbursements and through managed care. The Obama administration has advocated a third way: moving away from fee-for-service payments, which reward providers for doing more procedures, to a coordinated system that pays doctors and hospitals for doing better. Right from her opening paragraph, Connolly adopts the conceptual framework which has defined this year’s discussion of health care spending. In her work, health care costs will continue to rise (or grow). We are only trying to slow the rate at which they grow. We’ll still see a rise in health care costs. But it won’t be a runaway rise. But then, the New York Times adopts this same framework in today’s informative lead editorial about the new Republican health reform proposal: NEW YORK TIMES EDITORIAL (11/6/09): House Republican leaders have produced their own health care reform bill. Here is the first thing you need to know: It would do almost nothing to reduce the scandalously high number of Americans who have no insurance. And it makes only a token stab at slowing the relentlessly rising costs of medical care. How does the Times judge the GOP bill? The Times doesn’t think the costs of health care can be reduced, or kept where they are. The Times assumes that costs will continue to rise. The editors complain that the GOP bill doesn’t slow the rate at which those costs will be rising. We’re trying to “slow the runway rise of costs.” This implies that costs will continue to rise. Neither Connolly, nor the editors, mentioned a striking fact: The baseline from which our health costs are rising dwarfs the baseline of health care spending found everywhere else in the world. Why is the baseline of our spending two to three times that of everyone else? This question has been disappeared this whole year. It’s AWOL in these two pieces. We’re only trying to slow the growth in our massive health care costs! Before we see the ubiquity of that framework in Connolly’s piece, let’s consider the tyranny of the great big large number. Within her conceptual framework, Connolly offers an interesting report. She quotes a string experts; they say that proposed reform plans don’t do enough about slowing the growth in our spending. At one point, she lists four basic concerns. In her fourth and final concern, we find ourselves struggling with tyranny: CONNOLLY: Now, as the debate reaches a critical juncture, many are worried that the president's ambitious hopes to constrain costs could result in tepid half-measures on Capitol Hill. Among the concerns: A Senate plan to tax high-priced insurance policies saves far less money—and is less likely to change medical consumption—than eliminating the tax exemption for employer-sponsored coverage. Proposals on comparative-effectiveness research and a new Medicare cost-cutting commission have been watered down. An array of Medicare pilot projects aimed at paying doctors and hospitals for quality rather than quantity would take years to be implemented nationally—if they ever were. None of the bills addresses medical liability, even though the Congressional Budget Office has concluded that tort reform could save $54 billion over the next decade. In a bit of a non-sequitur, Connolly refers to Obama’s “ambitious hopes to constrain costs.” (In our view, an ambitious person would be hoping to reduce costs, on a major scale, a scale suggested by the foreign experience.) But by her fourth point, we see how sad our pseudo-discussion really is. And we have a head-on collision with the tyranny of the large number. Is it true? Could tort reform “save $54 billion over the next decade?” We don’t know, but we do know this: That looks like a very large number of dollars. But alas! Viewed in a rational way, that number is really quite small. Crackers! Health care spending in your nation totals roughly $2.5 trillion per year! And it takes a thousand billions to equal even one trillion! In short, that $54 billion would represent an astoundingly small percentage of health care spending “over the next decade.” But then, Lori Montgomery noted this fact last month, when she reported the CBO’s finding on tort reform in Connolly’s own Washington Post: MONTGOMERY (10/10/09): Congressional budget analysts said Friday that lawmakers could save as much as $54 billion over the next decade by imposing an array of new limits on medical malpractice lawsuits—10 times more than previously estimated. [...] [CBO kingpin Douglas] Elmendorf wrote that newly available research prompted CBO to update "its analysis of the effects of tort reform." The agency's conclusion: A package of reforms that included a $250,000 cap on damages for pain and suffering and a $500,000 cap on punitive damages “would reduce total national health care spending by about 0.5 percent.” The federal government would reap a substantial portion of those savings, the CBO said, primarily through reduced Medicare costs. Candidly, we don’t know where that “0.5 percent” figure comes from; as a percentage of national spending on health care, it seems much too high. But plainly, we’re talking about very small beans here. How many readers would have known that from reading Connolly’s report? It’s the tyranny of the large number! Millions, billions and trillions rhyme; this makes them seem like they’re in the same ball park. Sadly, they aren’t. And that projected saving from tort reform falls short of a drop in our bucket. In this way, you see how surreal the frameworks are which guide our health care pseudo-discussion. Just for starters, this article’s framework—Let’s slow the growth!—isn’t “ambitious” at all. And by the time we get to Connolly’s fourth point, we’re dreaming of drops in our bucket. But go ahead! Read through Connolly’s report, and today’s New York Times editorial. Everywhere, an odd framework prevails. Connolly, and her experts, and the New York Times editors? They all tell us this: Crackers! Just ignore the ludicrous size of that baseline—the mammoth spending in which we engage! Instead, let’s join hands with industry and sing Kumbaya! Confusing ourselves with some very small numbers, let’s talk about slowing the growth! Let’s do it with drops in the bucket! Connolly’s concubines: Everyone has agreed on that framework. Ignore those foreign spending figures! Let’s talk about slowing the growth! CONNOLLY: Ralph Neas, head of the nonpartisan National Coalition on Health Care, noted that "these bills do very little in terms of reining in long-term cost growth," adding: "There is not enough in the public sector and virtually none in the private sector.” CONNOLLY: Richard Foster, the chief actuary of the federal Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, said lawmakers could achieve far greater savings in the health system if they aggressively pursued research that identifies the best, most cost-effective treatments. "If you did comparative effectiveness in a way that looked at whether to approve a new therapy because it is cost effective and is an improvement, then you'd have a fighting chance of slowing down the rate of growth," he said in an interview. "Nobody's proposing that." CONNOLLY: White House budget chief Peter Orszag said in an interview that changing the tax treatment of employer-sponsored health benefits "is among the most important single things that could be done to constrain costs and improve quality.” “Constrain costs?” What the heck does that mean? Just a guess: It means slow the growth! Why aren’t we trying to cut our astonishing level of spending? Crackers, please! Don’t even ask! The swells have agreed not to go there!

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• 05 Nov 2009 16:49

  NAMING SHELBY! Who has disinformed us rubes? As usual, Kristof won’t tell: THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 5, 2009 Are these the sons of Acorn: Yesterday morning, we gave the analyst permission to chuckle. They were reading Robert Pear’s soft-soap account, in the New York Times, of the GOP’s newly-released health care proposal. In paragraph 5, they hit the presentation we have highlighted. We let them take a few moments: PEAR (11/4/09): The Republican bill differs from the Democratic measure in that it would not require people to obtain insurance or require employers to offer it. It is almost surely cheaper than the House Democrats' bill because, unlike that proposal, it would not expand Medicaid or offer federal subsidies to low- and middle-income people to help them buy insurance. Nor would the Republican bill impose new taxes. The House Republican bill would not explicitly prohibit insurers from denying coverage to people because of pre-existing medical conditions, even though many Republicans have said they agree with Democrats that the federal government should outlaw such denials. After chuckling, the analysts worried. Could the bill for all that soft soap possibly bankrupt the Times? Too funny! Would this GOP bill prohibit insurers from denying coverage based on pre-existing conditions? It wouldn’t explicitly do so, Pear wrote—making the analysts wonder how else a bill can “prohibit” something. Meanwhile, Pear threw in a second dollop of soap: Many Republicans want to do that, he helpfully said—even as he seemed to fudge the fact that their bill wouldn’t do so. What in the world does Pear’s statement mean? We don’t know, but one day earlier, the Washington Post had been a good deal less nuanced. “Boehner said Monday that the [GOP proposal] would not include language banning insurance companies from denying coverage to consumers with preexisting conditions,” the Post reported. “Explicitly” didn’t come into it. Was Pear just kissing Republican keister? Playing perhaps by those Acorn Rules? (See THE DAILY HOWLER, 11/4/09.) We have no way of knowing. But the analysts chuckled at Pear last week when he mentioned the number of pages in the House Democratic bill (1,990). Is that a normal type of reporting? Or was Pear just kissing conservative keister? Sorry: Was he eschewing his newspaper’s “insufficient tuned-in-ness to the issues that are dominating Fox News and talk radio?” Another point from yesterday’s Pear report: As he continued, the scribe reported the following. He made no attempt to offer context about this familiar proposal—familiar if you watch Fox: PEAR: The bill would also make it easier for insurers to sell insurance across state lines. Policies would be subject to laws in a company's home state, but would be exempt from many of the consumer protection laws, rating rules and benefit mandates in other states where the company sold coverage. In a boxed, three-point summary of the “Republican Vision of Health Care,” this proposal was included in the first and third points. As anyone who watches Fox will know, this has been a constant conservative proposal for health reform. But do you know what the downside to this proposed change would be? Of course you don’t! Despite the ubiquity of this proposal, we have never seen any newspaper explain the pluses and minuses. Remember: The New York Times has vowed to keep abreast of the “bubbling controversies” which are “dominating Fox News and talk radio.” So far, this seems to mean that the hapless newspaper will present these bubbling controversies from the conservative point of view. As we saw in Tuesday’s front-page report about Gore, the Times will make these bubbles sound grand. When the Times treats these controversies, you won’t be told about the bull-roar which often lies at their base. The Republican bill would make it easier to sell insurance across state lines? Pear’s editors stressed this familiar proposal in their three-point boxed presentation. But do you know what’s wrong with that proposal? That proposal sounds like a sweet idea—but it does have a clear downside. Do you know what that downside is? We’ve never seen anyone explain it! You hear this proposal on Fox all the time. Yesterday’s New York Times stressed this proposal, while leaving it bubbly and new. NAMING SHELBY: Nicholas Kristof writes a fairly good column today. Then again, he writes a bad column. On the plus side, Kristof’s column rattles facts about our nation’s unimpressive health outcomes. What follows has all been said before. But there’s nothing wrong with (snore) saying it all again KRISTOF (11/5/09): The United States ranks 31st in life expectancy (tied with Kuwait and Chile), according to the latest World Health Organization figures. We rank 37th in infant mortality (partly because of many premature births) and 34th in maternal mortality. A child in the United States is two-and-a-half times as likely to die by age 5 as in Singapore or Sweden, and an American woman is 11 times as likely to die in childbirth as a woman in Ireland. Canadians live longer than Americans do after kidney transplants and after dialysis, and that may be typical of cross-border differences. One review examined 10 studies of how the American and Canadian systems dealt with various medical issues. The United States did better in two, Canada did better in five and in three they were similar or it was difficult to determine. Etc., and so forth and so on. Kristof even addresses the claim that the U.S. gets worse health outcomes because of “unhealthy lifestyles and a diverse population with pockets of poverty.” Not so, the columnist claims, citing a McKinsey study which found that “over all, the disease burden in Europe is higher than in the United States, probably because Americans smoke less and because the American population is younger.” This is all well and good. But then too, there’s the familiar, unfortunate way Kristof started this column. Kristof starts his column by describing something he calls a “distortion.” This distortion may, in fact, be “the single greatest myth in the health care debate,” he says. We agree with Kristof about this distortion. But that’s where our affirmation ends. This is how Kristof’s column starts. The italics are drawn from his column: KRISTOF: The moment of truth for health care is at hand, and the distortion that perhaps gets the most traction is this: We have the greatest health care system in the world. Sure, it has flaws, but it saves lives in ways that other countries can only dream of. Abroad, people sit on waiting lists for months, so why should we squander billions of dollars to mess with a system that is the envy of the world? As Senator Richard Shelby of Alabama puts it, President Obama's plans amount to ''the first step in destroying the best health care system the world has ever known.'' That self-aggrandizing delusion may be the single greatest myth in the health care debate. In fact, America's health care system is worse than Slov—er, oops, more on that later. That’s the way this column starts. As he so often does, Kristof takes the easy way out. In our view, that italicized paragraph does represent a gigantic public distortion. Voters hear versions of that claim all the time—of the claim that we enjoy the greatest-in-the-world health system. It’s clear that many voters believe this claim. It’s hardly surprising that voters believe this claim, given the frequency with which they hear it. When voters believe this inaccurate claim, it gets harder to achieve health reform. We’d be inclined to call this claim a large “deception,” not simply a large distortion. That italicized paragraph represents a vast, destructive deception. But who has been peddling this “myth” to the public? Who has been deceiving the voters? At this point, Kristof runs and hides. Richard Shelby has done this bad thing, the cowardly columnist declares. In fairness, Kristof quotes Shelby with perfect accuracy. Shelby did make that silly quoted statement; he did so five long months ago, on June 7. But in making that statement, Shelby simply joined the ranks of a legion of deceivers. The time has come—has long since passed—to tell the public who these deceivers are. But Kristof ducks that challenge today. Shelby said it! the columnist says. And that represents his only attempt to name the evil-doers. We know, we know: Kristof never says that Shelby is solely responsible for this “myth”—for peddling the “distortion that perhaps gets the most traction.” But if the public is being grossly disinformed, shouldn’t someone tell the public who is disinforming them? In today’s column, Kristof takes the classic way out, High Manhattan style: He names the deepest-south figure he can find, then drops the question of blame altogether. Life is easier in the fast lane when you duck and dodge in this manner. You get fewer nasty e-mails. You get name-called less often. The conservative world doesn’t make you a target. You continue apace as a Serious Person. But you’re treating the public like rubes. Who has been disinforming the public? Sorry, it isn’t just Shelby. In fact, the whole Republican establishment has between doing this, for decades now—but Kristof isn’t the type of fellow who makes such shrill statements. (The GOP has done this as its serves the nation’s Big Corporate Interests.) No one did this more in the last campaign than a famous fellow who isn’t from Alabama—a famous New Yorker named Giuliani. Here was Gotham’s Great Dissembler at a GOP debate: GIULIANI (8/5/07): I know the Democrats get upset when you say this, but they are taking us toward socialized medicine. If we want to have the kinds of results they have in England or France or Canada or Cuba, then we should go in that direction. But that would be a terrible thing to do. As a presidential candidate, Giuliani paraded all about, deriding “the kinds of results they have in France.” But uh-oh! Like others at his famous newspaper, Kristof forgot to react. Today, he names Shelby alone. In 2009, Giuliani is largely out of the news, of course. But Kristof’s column is the latest example of a type of cowardice that typifies modern mainstream journalism—on the pseudo-liberal end. Does America have “the best health care system the world has ever known?” Actually, no—we don’t. Yet millions of voters believe that we do, because they have been systematically disinformed, for decades. Health reform is very hard, in part because so many voters have these mistaken beliefs. Wouldn’t you think someone would want to write a column explaining who has deceived us? That someone wouldn’t seem to be Kristof, who takes the safe approach to this matter today. He names the deepest-red southern rube he can find, then sails ahead to safer precincts. Surely, Kristof knows that this massive deception has been authored by one of our major parties (with the help of the other party), and by the large corporate groups which fund so much of our upper-end culture. Kristof knows this—but voters don’t. That’s because people like Kristof keep refusing to tell them. We’d call this column Classic Kristof. Kristof is very good at several things. He’s good at echoing Expert Opinion. He’s good at posing himself as a moral exemplar. But then, he’s good at a third thing too: He’s good at keeping himself out of trouble. He’s very good at playing it safe—naming Shelby, then moving right on.

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• 05 Nov 2009 00:30

  HE ACORN RULES! The New York Time channeled our biggest denier for a front-page “report” about Gore: WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 4, 2009 They called it a streak: How they do love to over-interpret! This morning, the analysts shared a good solid laugh when they looked at the banner headline which sat atop the New York Times’ front page. This is the headline which appears in our hard-copy Times: Breaking a Streak, Virginia Elects a Republican Governor In fact, the “streak” to which that headline refers extends all the way back through two prior gubernatorial races! In fact, this is what Virginia has done during the course of that streak. Note: In Virginia, incumbent governors can’t seek re-election: Virginia gubernatorial elections: 2009: Virginia elected Bob McDonnell (R) 2005: Virginia elected Tim Kaine (D) 2001: Virginia elected Mark Warner (D) 1997: Virginia elected Jim Gilmore (R) To us, that isn’t much of a streak. But then, the Times’ Ian Urbina knew about this. Here’s the start of his front-page report, which appears beneath that banner: URBINA (11/4/09): Robert F. McDonnell, a Republican and a former state attorney general, won a decisive victory in Virginia's governor's race Tuesday, a stark reversal of fortune for Democrats who have held control in Richmond for the past eight years. In the headline, it was the end of a “streak.” To Urbina, it was something equally thrilling—“a stark reversal of fortune.” But then, we warned you yesterday to be on alert for pranks of just this type! Every four years, this is the day when the over-interpreters costume themselves, come to your homes and offer you silly, scary stories. Congratulations to Bob McDonnell! But the analysts shared a knowing laugh when they gazed on that headline, which ballyhooed the world’s shortest possible “streak.” Stark reversals are for lovers: In 2001, Mark Warner broke up a similar streak: Virginia gubernatorial elections: 2001: Virginia elected Mark Warner (D) 1997: Virginia elected Jim Gilmore (R) 1993: Virginia elected George Allen (R) 1989: Virginia elected Douglas Wilder (D) Stark reversals never end in Virginia! Despite this, the state is for lovers. THE ACORN RULES: Bill Keller runs the New York Times. After September’s semi-hysterical reaction to the prosty-and-pimp-visit-Acorn flap, Keller swore that the mighty Times would do better in the future on the kooky-con pander beat. He didn’t phrase it exactly like that. At the end of September, Clark Hoyt, the Times’ public editor, quoted Keller and his semi-hysterical helpmate, Jill Abramson, as they made a perfervid vow: HOYT (9/27/09): Dean Baquet, the Washington bureau chief, said, ''We did not ignore the Acorn story, so I don't think it's fair for people to say we blew it off.”... Jill Abramson, the managing editor for news, agreed with me that the paper was ''slow off the mark,'' and blamed “insufficient tuned-in-ness to the issues that are dominating Fox News and talk radio.” She and Bill Keller, the executive editor, said last week that they would now assign an editor to monitor opinion media and brief them frequently on bubbling controversies. Keller declined to identify the editor, saying he wanted to spare that person ''a bombardment of e-mails and excoriation in the blogosphere.” Despite what the critics think, Abramson said the problem was not liberal bias. The twin hysterics assigned an unnamed editor to keep abreast of the clowning on Fox and talk radio. (Sorry: To keep abreast of the “bubbling controversies.”) Just a guess: This new regime may explain yesterday’s front-page “news report.” This non-story story involves Al Gore’s investments in clean energy. Yesterday afternoon, we heard the non-story story being discussed on Baltimore talk radio. Last night, David Letterman even asked Gore about it, during an otherwise intelligent discussion on Late Night. But then, the silly theme of this news report comes to us straight from conservative talk. Just a guess: Abiding by the Acorn Rules, Keller’s unnamed editor persuaded the brass to put this drek on page one. In these ways, in the wake of that prosty-pimp flap, the Times bows low to the kooks. What is the theme of this front-page report? Gore has invested in clean energy! In this passage, the hapless John Broder (no relation) explains the situation: BRODER (11/3/09): Mr. Gore has invested a significant portion of the tens of millions of dollars he has earned since leaving government in 2001 in a broad array of environmentally friendly energy and technology business ventures, like carbon trading markets, solar cells and waterless urinals. He has also given away millions more to finance the nonprofit he founded, the Alliance for Climate Protection, and to another group, the Climate Project, which trains people to present the slide show that was the basis of his documentary ''An Inconvenient Truth.'' Royalties from his new book on climate change, ''Our Choice,'' printed on 100 percent recycled paper, will go to the alliance, an aide said. Summarizing: Gore has earned “tens of millions of dollars” since leaving the White House. He has given away millions of dollars in earning. He has also invested “a significant portion” of those earnings in “environmentally friendly ventures.” Later, we learn that Gore “is not a lobbyist, and he has never asked Congress or the administration for an earmark or policy decision that would directly benefit one of his investments.” By normal standards, we’re not real sure why this would qualify for a 1400-word front-page report, accompanied by a massive photo on page A15. Just a guess: Was this underwhelming “news report” hatched to keep faith with the Acorn Rules? The foolishness started early on, as Broder agreed to type a silly claim voiced by Gore’s various “critics:” BRODER: Critics, mostly on the political right and among global warming skeptics, say Mr. Gore is poised to become the world's first ''carbon billionaire,'' profiteering from government policies he supports that would direct billions of dollars to the business ventures he has invested in. Representative Marsha Blackburn, Republican of Tennessee, asserted at a hearing this year that Mr. Gore stood to benefit personally from the energy and climate policies he was urging Congress to adopt. Mr. Gore says that he is simply putting his money where his mouth is. ''Do you think there is something wrong with being active in business in this country?'' Mr. Gore said. ''I am proud of it. I am proud of it.” Is it silly enough for you yet? According to Broder, Gore has earned “tens of millions” of dollars. He has invested part of those earnings in clean energy. But to Gore’s “critics,” this somehow means that Gore “is poised” to become a “carbon billionaire!” Playing perhaps by the Acorn Rules, Broder was happy to type this seemingly clownish claim—while pretending that someone other than warming deniers and the political right have been making this presentation. Can we talk? If Gore is “poised to become” a billionaire based on a few million dollars’ investment, he should probably drop the warming beat and take control of the U.S. economy. But Broder ignored the apparent nonsense of the “carbon billionaire” claim—and there was Letterman, repeating the outsized phrase last night, for everyone to hear! And by the way: Do you doubt the fact that this claim comes from the dumbest among us—and from no one else? Later in his report, Broder sloshes into the fever swamps to identify the source of this clowning: BRODER: Mr. Gore is not a lobbyist, and he has never asked Congress or the administration for an earmark or policy decision that would directly benefit one of his investments. But he has been a tireless advocate for policies that would move the country away from the use of coal and oil, and he has begun a $300 million campaign to end the use of fossil fuels in electricity production in 10 years. But Marc Morano, a climate change skeptic who until recently was a top aide to Senator James M. Inhofe, Republican of Oklahoma, said that what he saw as Mr. Gore's alarmism and occasional exaggerations distorted the debate and also served his personal financial interests. Mr. Gore has testified numerous times in support of legislation to address climate change and to revamp the nation's energy policies. When it comes to climate science, are there two bigger kooks on earth than Morano and his former boss, Inhofe? But probably under the Acorn Rules, the Times now crawls through these fever swamps, heroically fighting its “insufficient tuned-in-ness to the issues that are dominating Fox News and talk radio.” In this way, a very famous non-newspaper newspaper dumbs the discourse way down. On the bright side, its editors get less hate mail from the right. They are thus able to get to the Hamptons a little bit earlier each Thursday. How absurd was this non-story story? Just follow the headlines! “Gore’s Role Both as Goad for Cause and as Investor Is in Spotlight,” the headline said on page A15 of our hard-copy Times. On the front page, the Times ran a similar headline: “Gore’s Dual Role in Spotlight: Goad for Cause and Investor.” But has Gore’s investing really been in some sort of “spotlight?” In the world of kooky-con fever swamps, the answer is a limited yes. In the world of the Moranos and Inhofes, global warming is a “hoax;” Gore’s investments have thus come to mean that Gore is promoting a scientific hoax in support of an investment scam. But that seems to be the extent of the “spotlight” in which this silly story has lurked. According to the Nexis archives, the term “carbon billionaire:” had never appeared in an American newspaper until Tuesday’s front-page report, except for a letter to the Muskegon (Michigan) Chronicle on August 21 of this year. (That’s right: Until today, the term had never appeared in the Washington Times.) Meanwhile, the term had been uttered just once on TV. It was uttered last May on O’Reilly, by a prominent warming denier. Does the name ring a bell? MORANO (5/1/09): Al Gore wants to become the first carbon billionaire. And he is poised to do it. Al Gore “was wealthy before,” guest host Laura Ingraham replied. “I am not sure that is the motivation.” But note the way Broder cut-and-pasted Morano’s precise language in yesterday’s front-page report—as he pretended that this clownish claim is being advanced by a wide range of observers. Reading Broder, you would think that this claim has been advanced a by a wide range of critics, not exclusively by those on the right. Checking Nexis, we find the claim being made by one person: Morano. Bill Keller’s father was head of Chevron. Today, the son bows low to kooks like Morano. It’s a good way to get a head start to the Hamptons. On the downside, playing by these apparent Acorn Rules helps makes a joke of your discourse. Yesterday, we heard “carbon billionaire” on Baltimore radio. Then, we heard the phrase on Letterman. The phrase was delivered to you by a kook—channeled through the nation’s most famous non-newspaper newspaper. Today, the phrase finally hits the Washington Timers—courtesy of Keller’s Acorn Rules. In this way, the New York Times continue a practice from the 1990s. It spreads the prime drek all around. Tomorrow: More silly crap at the New York Times, served up by the Acorn Rules. Questioning Inhofe: Have you ever seen a story in the Times about financial gains to Inhofe and Morano from their climate change denial? In April, this widely-criticized profile of Morano made a minor glancing attempt. We find no sign that the Times has ever examined the gains to Inhofe in investments and campaign contributions. Darlings, it simply isn’t done! You can just picture the e-mails!

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• 03 Nov 2009 12:21

  HE SWELLS DON’T CARE! What ever happened to “affordable?” E. J. Dionne doesn’t care: TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 3, 2009 The night of the over-interpreters: Last Saturday, the children dressed as goblins and ghosts. They came to your door to scare and impress you with threats and silly tales. Tonight belongs to the over-interpreters. Every four years, on this very night, these adults put costumes on too. They enter your homes with silly tales about the off-off-year elections in Virginia and New Jersey. This year, a meaningless House race is thrown in the mix, providing room for more blather. Is it possible to draw lessons about the nation’s political mood from today’s gubernatorial contests? Possibly. But it’s hard to say what those lessons might be—unless you’re watching cable “news,” in which case the lessons may be quite clear. More specifically: If Corzine wins by one percent, it will surely mean some significant thing. If he loses by one point, it will mean something different. Remember: These aren’t just the dumbest people on earth, they’re also over-paid entertainers. They aren’t just willing to feed you pap—they’re trying to make you like them. Last night, the analysts groaned when the Maddow Show started with some of the host’s trademark, “hey-look-at-me” clowning. Maddow emoted about how excited she is, looking ahead to tonight’s returns. We had two reactions: Actually, no—she isn’t. If she is, it helps us see how gruesome cable can be. (To watch the host’s clowning, click here.) In every “off-off” election since 1977, Virginians have elected a governor from the “out” party—from the party which isn’t controlling the White House. (Victory margins may differ.) But so what? This night belongs to the over-interpreters. They will tell you what it means when it happens for the ninth straight time. They want you to think they are handing out treats. Our warning: Look out for their tricks! The morning of the over-interpreters: If you read halfway into Jeff Zeleny’s report in today’s New York Times, you finally get a fact, of sorts: ZELENY (11/3/09): The Iowa Poll, published in September by The Des Moines Register, showed that Mr. Obama's approval rating had fallen to 53 percent, from 64 percent in April. In interviews around the state, the economy emerged as one of the most worrisome undercurrents. In short, Obama’s changed standing in Iowa roughly mirrors that found in the rest of the country. But Zeleny’s big, sprawling piece is all dressed up with snap, crackle and pop about Iowa’s privileged status in the world of Obama Interpretation. We had to chuckle at one point: ZELENY: Interviews with voters across Iowa offer a window into how the president's standing has leveled off, especially among the independents and Republicans who contributed not just to his margin of victory in the caucuses here but also to the optimism among his supporters that his election would be a break from standard-issue politics. For Democrats, the immediate peril of failing to hang on to some of these swing voters could play out Tuesday in the governor's race in Virginia, a state Mr. Obama wrested away from Republicans last year but where the Democratic candidate for governor has struggled to recreate Mr. Obama's enthusiastic coalition. Say what? Will some of Iowa’s “swing voters” be casting ballots today in Virginia? That isn’t what Zeleny meant, of course. But there will be a lot of stretching displayed on cable tonight. Zeleny interviewed (some) Iowa voters, asking what they think about Obama. There’s nothing automatically “wrong” with that practice. But it does leave room for lots of mischief. Prepare for some pranksters tonight. THE SWELLS DON’T CARE: Is there a progressive bone in the mainstream press corps’ body? We asked ourselves that question again as we read E. J. Dionne’s latest column, in yesterday’s Washington Post. Under Obama, Dionne is mostly playing cheerleader. Under Clinton, he mostly kept quiet. Neither stance has been productive for those who would build a progressive politics. As he started yesterday’s column, Dionne was cheerleading for what lies ahead—and he was defining “health reform” down: DIONNE (11/2/09): The next health-care fight has already started. It's the battle to define the bill that President Obama will eventually sign as a victory for consumers, taxpayers and the common good. You might say this view is premature. Legislation has yet to pass the House or the Senate, there are differences between the two bodies, and some moderates still have doubts. But barring astoundingly self-defeating behavior by Democrats, a decent bill will get to Obama's desk. He and his party will then own the most sweeping reform of the American social safety net since the passage of Medicare in the 1960s and, arguably, Social Security in the 1930s. Both parties know this. That's why much of the rhetoric you'll hear in the coming weeks will not really be about whether to pass a bill. It will be designed to shape how the voters who will decide the 2010 elections—and, ultimately, the fate of health-care reform itself come to view the new system. Dionne is certainly right about that coming rhetorical “battle.” Assuming that some sort of health reform passes, Republicans will try to say it stinks. Democrats will hail its greatness. And by the way: As he continued, Dionne was right about something else. There will be real advances—real “benefits”—in whatever reform bill passes. Dionne named some of those benefits—some of reform’s real gains: DIONNE: These [benefits] include insurance reforms to ban lifetime limits on coverage and an end to "rescissions," under which insurers abruptly nullify patients' policies after they file claims. One of the most popular reforms in the bill—barring insurers from denying coverage to those with pre-existing conditions—wouldn't take effect until later. So the House bill creates an interim high-risk pool to help those who need coverage in the meantime. There are also particular benefits for Medicare recipients, including an immediate reduction in drug costs, and a very popular provision that would allow parents to keep their children on the family health plan through age 26. Dionne listed some real advances which will be included in any bill. But the analysts gagged as he neared the end of his column. In particular, note the way Dionne now defines our pending health reform. Does he have a progressive bone in his body, the sobbing analysts asked: DIONNE: "People will be excited about 2013," said Rep. George Miller, chairman of the House Education and Labor Committee, which shares jurisdiction on the health-care bill. "But there are enough benefits between now and then to keep them engaged and to keep them favorably disposed." The key word here is "excited," and the central task of supporters of health-care reform is to elevate the discussion to the central question at stake: Will the United States join all the other wealthy democracies in providing nearly everyone with health insurance? Or will we kick away the opportunity? Uh-oh! When the discussion about “health reform” started, liberals and Democrats were hoping to “join all other wealthy democracies” in providing universal, affordable health insurance. In this column, Dionne kicks “affordable” under the rug. Yes, this proves he’s a Serious Person. But is there a progressive bone in the gentleman’s body? What ever happened to “affordable?” Plainly, this part of reform has been disappeared—and the looting seems to have stayed in the system. Dionne doesn’t breathe a word of this, thus showing himself to be a team player—while keeping his readers barefoot and clueless about this bill’s apparent failure. Will any likely health reform bill address our mammoth over-spending, in which we spend two to three times as much, per person, as those other “wealthy democracies?” Will it address the stunning cost of insurance premiums for regular people? In today’s New York Times, Robert Pear’s report looks ahead to what the future may hold: PEAR (11/3/09): As the House moved toward climactic votes on legislation to remake the health care system, the Congressional Budget Office said Monday that middle-income families might be required to pay 15 percent to 18 percent of their income on insurance premiums and co-payments under the proposal. Democrats cited the figures as evidence that the legislation would reduce premiums for many low- and middle-income families who currently lack affordable coverage. In Pear’s account, Democrats say future coverage will be “affordable.” But on their face, the claim he attributes to those Dems seems a bit hard to credit. For the record, those middle-income families would be paying 15-18 percent of their pre-tax income for their health care. Does that sound like “affordable” health care? For various reasons, Pear’s analysis is hard to judge. But note one thing well: In a detailed discussion of health care costs for the average family, not a word is allowed to intrude about the stunning foreign experience, in which universal care is achieved at half (or less) the per-person cost we maintain over here. Once again, Times readers are kept from knowing a basic fact: Everywhere else, average people get health care at a massively lower cost than obtains over here. Alas! In America, we tried “managed care.” Now, we’re having a “managed discussion.” A real progressive would scream and yell about the looting which seems to plague the system—about the massive, apparently unnecessary cost of health care for average people. But as the health reform project has proceeded, the looting seems to have stayed in the picture. In an unfortunate trade-off, the word “affordable” has largely disappeared. E. J. Dionne is a Serious Person. On Monday, he kept his trap shut about a very large problem. The prospective bill will approach universal coverage. But what ever happened to affordable coverage? To us, the evidence seems rather strong: In the press corps, the swells just don’t care. Grayson keeps it in the picture: On last night’s Countdown, Alan Grayson kept “affordable” in the picture. KO was slobbering just a bit as the straight-talker voiced the claim: OLBERMANN (11/2/09): Congressman Alan Grayson of Florida, as always, to the point and succinct. GRAYSON: Thank you. OLBERMANN: And thanks for being both and for your time tonight. GRAYSON: Thank you very much, Keith. We’re close to the end of this long, long road to affordable, universal, comprehensive health care in America. Grayson said future health care would be “affordable,” producing this extended discussion: OLBERMANN (continuing directly): Amen! Congratulations in advance! GRAYSON: Thank you. Does Olbermann have a progressive bone? If so, he should have Grayson back on Countdown tomorrow to answer a basic question: Grayson! Affordable how? Compared to what? In what way will health care be “affordable?” Tonight belongs to the over-interpreters. Why can’t tomorrow night belong to this basic issue?

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• 02 Nov 2009 19:19

  THE LATEST FROM COLUMNIST FEELGOOD! Mimicking Beck and playing the fool, Rich keeps us barefoot and clueless: MONDAY, NOVEMBER 2, 2009 John Harwood stumbles and falls: Cable news is getting more partisan, John Harwood says in today’s New York Times. More specifically, he reports that the audiences watching cable news channels have gotten more partisan over the years. Forget about those changing audiences—let’s consider the actual work done by the cable news channels. Is there a potential problem when cable news channels become more “partisan”—less “objective”—in their presentations of news? Early on, Harwood quotes someone offering a clueless dismissal of this silly idea HARWOOD (11/2/09): Press critics worry that the rise of media polarization threatens the foundation of credible, common information that American politics needs to thrive. Will Feltus, a Republican specialist in voter targeting, does not. If it complicates the choices facing leaders in Washington, Mr. Feltus argues, it also decentralizes political communication in a way that is both inevitable and healthy in the information age. “I feel no hand-wringing about it,” Mr. Feltus said. ''People are smart enough to understand what color filter is over the lens.” What, Feltus and Harwood worry? In effect, Feltus says voters “are smart enough” to adjust for the slant of some cable channels. This is an utterly silly analysis. But Harwood simply proceeds ahead, offering no questions or comments about it. When voters watch a cable channel, are they “smart enough to understand what color filter is over the lens?” Maybe, maybe not. But what if that channel feeds them fake facts? Are they “smart enough” to understand that? Presumably, no: After all, if everyone already knew all the facts, there would be little need for news orgs at all. News consumers can also be burned when they are handed accurate facts—accurate facts which are highly selective and thereby misleading. Or when they are handed absurd “analyses” built upon accurate facts. These things happen on Fox all the time—or when you’re watching Rachel Maddow. You can decide for yourself where it happens more. (For ourselves, we think this is a losing—and anti-democratic—strategy for liberals to adopt.) In the past few weeks, pols and pundits have often fumbled in explaining what’s the matter with Fox. Sorry: There are basic problems with partisan “news.” At the very least, we ought to learn how to explain what those problems are. Just for starters, we ought to know this: People who know that Broadcaster X is a [liberal/conservative] can still get misled by his or her work. Viewers can even get misled when every statement by Broadcaster X is accurate. Blithely, Feltus waves this problem away. But so did Maddow, when she offered her absurdly limited “analysis” of what’s the matter with Fox. THE LATEST FROM COLUMNIST FEELGOOD: We’ll have to admit, it was Frank Rich’s column which most stuck in our mind this weekend. Mainly, the piece was Rich’s latest name-calling venture, aimed at conservatives and therefore designed to make us liberals feel good. But frankly, can anyone dumb us liberals down quite the way Rich does? RICH (11/1/09): The right still may want to believe, as Palin said during the campaign, that Alaska, with its small black and Hispanic populations, is a ''microcosm of America.'' (New York's 23rd also has few blacks or Hispanics.) But most Americans like their country's 21st-century profile. That changing complexion is part of why the McCain-Palin ticket lost every demographic group by large margins in 2008 except white senior citizens and the dwindling fifth of America that's still rural. It's also why the G.O.P. has been in a nosedive since the inauguration, whatever Obama's ups and downs. In the latest Wall Street Journal-NBC News poll, only 17 percent of Americans identify themselves as Republicans (as opposed to 30 percent for the Democrats, and 44 for independents). “The McCain-Palin ticket lost every demographic group by large margins in 2008 except white senior citizens and the dwindling fifth of America that's still rural?” We’re not entirely sure what that triumphalist statement means, and Rich makes no attempt to explain it. But in fact, McCain-Palin won the “demographic group” known as “white voters” by a roughly 56-43 percent margin. (That has been a fairly typical margin among white voters in recent presidential elections. ) Meanwhile, McCain-Palin lost the “demographic group” known as “men” by the “large margin” of about 49-48. In past columns, Rich has enjoyed noting “the inexorable transformation of America into a white-minority country...by 2042 in the latest Census Bureau estimate”—failing to note that Obama was trying to pass health reform this year. Rich seems to think that this demographic transformation inevitably dooms the conservative movement. But don’t worry! If liberals keep listening to dummies like Rich, conservative leaders will find many ways, long before that magical year, to turn growing minority populations against progressive interests. Rich will keep us liberals fiddling. The other side will be hard at work inventing frameworks designed to keep us voting for corporate and big money interests. In that odd highlighted statement, Rich was performing as Columnist Feelgood again, telling us liberal readers the silly things we presumably long to hear. From know-nothing pseudos like Rich, this piffle substitutes for the kind of work which might build winning progressive frameworks, understandings and ideas. How can health reform be in the pitiful state it’s in, given the utterly ludicrous state of American health care? Simple. “Intellectual leaders” like Rich have kept liberal readers barefoot and clueless. Yesterday’s ridiculous column was the latest in a long, sorry line. Frankly, Rich is the pits. Rich’s odd statement about demographic groups came fairly late in a gruesome column. The column’s real feature was its endless name-calling—the very sort of brainless name-calling we liberals have been decried, for very good reasons, in the past year. The name-calling started in the headline, and continued onward from there. How fatuous is this big bloated dope? Here—watch him dumb us all down. “The G.O.P. Stalinists Invade Upstate New York,” said Rich in his headline, seeming to channel the cuckoo Glenn Beck, while almost pushing a bit of a Halloween line. Indeed, Rich’s column almost reads like parody, so persistently does it dress its targets in silly historical costumes. The clowning started in paragraph 2—but it continued from there: RICH: The governors' races in New Jersey and Virginia were once billed as the marquee events of Election Day 2009—a referendum on presidency and a possible Republican ''comeback.'' But preposterous as it sounds, the real action migrated to New York's 23rd, a rural Congressional district abutting Canada. That this pastoral setting could become a G.O.P. killing field, attracting an all-star cast of combatants led by Sarah Palin, Glenn Beck, William Kristol and Newt Gingrich, is a premise out of a Depression-era screwball comedy. But such farces have become the norm for the conservative movement—whether the participants are dressing up in full ''tea party'' drag or not. The battle for upstate New York confirms just how swiftly the right has devolved into a wacky, paranoid cult that is as eager to eat its own as it is to destroy Obama. The movement's undisputed leaders, Palin and Beck, neither of whom have what Palin once called the ''actual responsibilities'' of public office, would gladly see the Republican Party die on the cross of right-wing ideological purity. Over the short term, at least, their wish could come true. The New York fracas was ignited by the routine decision of 11 local Republican county chairmen to anoint an assemblywoman, Dede Scozzafava, as their party's nominee for the vacant seat. The 23rd is in safe Republican territory that hasn't sent a Democrat to Congress in decades. And Scozzafava is a mainstream conservative by New York standards; one statistical measure found her voting record slightly to the right of her fellow Republicans in the Assembly. But she has occasionally strayed from orthodoxy on social issues (abortion, same-sex marriage) and endorsed the stimulus package. To the right's Jacobins, that's cause to send her to the guillotine. “The right” is a “wacky, paranoid cult.” They’re “Jacobins” creating a “GOP killing field.” This silly clowning continues throughout, with Rich’s targets described as a “wrecking crew” who have now staged “a putsch.” They are “re-enacting Stalinism in full purge mode.” They are “the Stalinists of the right.” This being a column by Rich, they are also racists, of course. Presumably, this explains why “the McCain-Palin ticket lost every demographic group by large margins in 2008 except white senior citizens and the dwindling fifth of America that's still rural.” As Rich executes this familiar old strain, his Feelgood work is done. That said:All hail the language and “thinking” of Beck! So we cried as we watched this, our own bloated dope, assail The Others for being such Stalinists. And by the way: What exactly have Rich’s targets done to merit being name-called these ways? Here’s what: In a meaningless House race in upstate New York, they have supported a candidate with whom they agree more, as opposed to a candidate with whom they agree less. To an idiot like Rich, this means they are “Stalinists” staging a “putsch,” creating a “GOP killing field.” Let’s remember this column the next time we moan about Beck’s inane, mindless ranting. (By the way: Scozzafava has now endorsed the Democrat, thus making Rich look even dumber. Why should a conservative Republican feel obliged to support her?) Columns like this help explain a key fact—the lack of anything resembling a progressive politics in this country. All over the country, your team-mates thought they were reading a fiery liberal when they read this silly column. They may not have realized that they were actually reading the work of a know-nothing dope. Your country has no progressive politics because people like Rich have sat in the saddle, defining the parameters of the liberal/progressive outlook. Rich has been dumb for a very long time. At this point, in columns like this, he seems to be trying to prove it.

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• 30 Oct 2009 10:42

  DEFINING HEALTH REFORM DOWN! Olbermann (almost) got it right. Then came Margaret Carlson: FRIDAY, OCTOBER 30, 2009 How well can we humans explain things: This one is just for us—athough it has been more than 100 years now! Reading Thursday’s New York Times, our eye sped to a murky part of Dennis Overbye’s science report. (The report appeared on page A17, right next to the health care reporting.) The headline gives you the basic idea of the piece: Once again, Einstein’s theory has turned out to be right! OVERBYE (10/29/09): 7.3 Billion Light-Years Later, Einstein's Theory Prevails Astronomers said Wednesday that a race halfway across the universe had ended in a virtual tie. And so the champion is still Albert Einstein—for now. The race was between gamma rays of differing energies and wavelengths spit in a burst from an exploding star when the universe was half its present age. After a journey of 7.3 billion light-years, they all arrived within nine-tenths of a second of one another in a detector on NASA's Fermi Gamma-Ray Space Telescope, at 8:22 p.m., Eastern time, on May 9. Astronomers said the gamma-ray race was one of the most stringent tests yet of a bedrock principle of modern physics: Einstein's proclamation in his 1905 theory of relativity that the speed of light is constant and independent of its color, or energy; its direction; or how you yourself are moving. Overbye (no relation) is one of the country’s top science reporters. We took delight in the murky writing in that highlighted passage. Our question: Why would Einstein have to proclaim that the speed of light is independent of the way you yourself are moving? Who would have thought something else was true? What could that statement mean? Consider: If someone throws a baseball at you, who would feel he had to proclaim, then go on to prove, that the speed of the baseball is independent of the way you yourself are moving? If the baseball is thrown at 100 miles per hour, who would think its speed would change depending on what you do? Ditto with the speed of light: If a light ray is moving toward you from a distant star, who would think its speed would change depending on how you yourself were moving? Why would Einstein feel he had to “proclaim” that its speed wouldn’t change even if you started to move? Science writers have had 104 years to work out their explanation of what Einstein said—in this “bedrock principle.” Here’s our question: Did anyone reading Thursday’s Times really understand what Overbye wrote? We know, we know! Some of you think you can explain what he said. But we’ll guess that you maybe can’t. Not exactly really. Science writers have had 104 years—but their editors keep waving statements like that into print. That said: If we can’t do better than that after 104 years of practice, how well do you think we can explain the current state of health reform? The current state of educational standards-or-testing? In this morning’s Times, we thought Robert Pear was very murky on various aspects of health reform. Ditto for Sam Dillon, writing a highly ambiguous piece about shifting educational “standards.” On Monday, we may look at those reports. But good grief! If we still can’t explain what Einstein proclaimed, when will the Times be ready to shed clear light on these much newer topics? DEFINING HEALTH REFORM DOWN: It’s “the defining moment” for health reform, Paul Krugman correctly says in this morning’s column. But hasn’t this also become the moment for defining health reform down? We refer to something that seems to have changed as Krugman starts his column KRUGMAN (10/30/09): O.K., folks, this is it. It's the defining moment for health care reform. Past efforts to give Americans what citizens of every other advanced nation already have—guaranteed access to essential care—have ended not with a bang, but with a whimper, usually dying in committee without ever making it to a vote. But this time, broadly similar health-care bills have made it through multiple committees in both houses of Congress. And on Thursday, Nancy Pelosi, the speaker of the House, unveiled the legislation that she will send to the House floor, where it will almost surely pass. It's not a perfect bill, by a long shot, but it's a much stronger bill than almost anyone expected to emerge even a few weeks ago. And it would lead to near-universal coverage. Let’s assume that the House bill would in fact “lead to near-universal coverage.” In the past, didn’t we also speak about giving people “access to affordable care?” In this column, “affordable” has largely made way for “essential” (see highlighted statement above)—except when the House bill “includes more generous subsidies than expected, making it easier for lower-income families to afford coverage.” Alas! Presumably, those generous subsidies are necessary because the bill will do next to nothing about the astonishing cost of insurance premiums. And guess what? Employers and those persons who don’t qualify for subsidies will still have to grapple with those daunting costs. For the vast majority of consumers, Krugman’s column says little or nothing about the discarded matter of affordable costs. For ourselves, we would vote for this bill whether it contained a public option which was robust, opt-in, opt-out or trigger. But in our view, the looting seems to have stayed in the picture as the question of affordable care disappears: This brings us to Tuesday evening’s Countdown, when Keith Olbermann (almost) got it right. Olbermann’s second topic on Tuesday was a major—and pleasant—surprise. A new study by Thomson Reuters had attempted to quantify the (gigantic) amount of wasteful spending in our health care system; Olbermann spent an entire segment discussing what the new study said! To be honest, Olbermann didn’t do a good job with this topic—in large part, because his staff had booked a non-expert guest. But how about credit where credit is due? Olbermann actually spent some minutes discussing a major topic which all parties, political journalistic, have largely agreed to deep-six. No, he didn’t do a good job. But this is the way he started: OLBERMANN (10/27/09): President Obama has often said that eliminating waste and inefficiency in the health care system could pay for most of any health care reform package. Critics have howled that there could not possibly be that much waste. And in our fourth story on the Countdown: A remarkable independent study not only supports Obama but proves he may have vastly underestimated just how much waste there is. The U.S. health care system wastes at least $505 billion, perhaps $850 billion every year. This is according to an independent study by Thomson- Reuters, the international news and information organization with expertise in health care and science. The vice president of health care analysis for that group saying, quote, "That`s one-third of the nation’s health care bill. The good news is that by attacking waste, we can reduce health care cost without adversely affecting the quality of care or access to care." Other findings from the study: 37 percent of waste, $200 billion to $300 billion a year, comes from unnecessary care, like the overused of antibiotics or lab tests to protect, in part, against malpractice exposure. 22 percent of health care waste, up to $200 billion, is created by fraud. 18 percent of it comes from administrative inefficiency and redundant paper. 11 percent of waste derives from medical mistakes. And preventable conditions such as uncontrolled diabetes cost $30 billion to $50 billion a year by themselves—that’s about 6 percent to 10 percent of health care waste. All of this explaining why the U.S. spends far more per person on health care than any other industrialized nation. For example, the average U.S. hospital spends a quarter of its budget—a quarter—on billing and administration. And it’s about twice as much as Canadian hospitals do. Let’s turn to the executive director of the California Nurses Association and the National Nurses Organizing Committee, Rose Ann Demoro. There were problems with Olbermann’s presentation, including his obvious attempt to pander to us right in that opening paragraph. Some, though not all, of the problems: Have Obama’s critics really “howled that there could not possibly be that much waste” in our health care spending? More often, all sectors—pro-reform and anti-reform—have simply ignored this topic. Is this new study really “remarkable?” In fact, it makes the types of claims which such studies always produce. These studies always produce these claims—after which, they get ignored by all major sectors in our pseudo-discussion. (For an earlier example, see THE DAILY HOWLER, 8/19/09.) Does the United States “spend far more per person on health care than any other industrialized nation?” Yes, but we’re always annoyed when expositors state it that way. How many people in Olbermann’s audience understand what “far more” really means in this context? Olbermann never presented the simple data which would have shown the astonishing size of our over-spending, as compared to that in the rest of the world. Instead, he offered a hugely irrelevant micro-example in which our hospitals spend almost twice as much as Canadian counterparts. Guess what, crackers? Our health care system as a whole spends almost twice as much as Canada’s! We spend more than twice as much as the French—and we start to incline toward three times as much when we talk about Span, Japan, Italy. Aaargh! Olbermann offered a largely pointless mini-example—but failed to present the Big Honking Picture. In this way, we fiery cable viewers remain dumb, barefoot, uninformed. After this, Olbermann brought out Demoro, who may serve with distinction at the CNA but seemed to be over her head with this topic. She fawned to her host in predictable ways and emoted in ways which this program demands. But she showed little sign of real expertise concerning this daunting topic. Afterwards, Olbermann moved to his next topic: To an utterly foolish segment in which he and Margaret Carlson kicked Sarah Palin and Newt Gingrich all around. They mugged and clowned for us liberal rubes about the ongoing race in New York’s 23rd House district. But right from Olbermann’s top-of-the-show introduction, neither performer seemed to have any real idea what Gingrich has actually said on this (basically pointless) topic. But then, most of the work on our liberal programs is just comfort food for us liberal rubes. After wasting his time with Carlson, Olbermann wasted his time pretending that an obscure Georgia congressman was the world’s worst person—while pretending that he was angry about it. He then wasted time with Gene Robinson, who dumbed himself down to please us rubes with predictable, mocking talk about George Bush’s motivational speaking. We got to laugh at Bush’s dumb speech. And we stayed dumb about spending. To his credit, Olbermann actually raised the question of our astonishing level of spending. But he discussed the topic poorly—and quickly moved on to the silly tricks with which he dumbs liberals down. Back to Krugman’s column: Whatever happened to the idea that health reform (a health “overhaul”) would involve making health care “affordable”—would involve bringing our astonishing spending in line with that found in the rest of the world? Would involve lowering our absurdly expensive premiums? By now, that idea has basically been disappeared. As best we can tell from the Nexis archives, Olbermann was the only host, broadcast or cable, to discuss this new study in prime time this week. Beyond that, the AP doesn’t seem to have filed a report. No newspapers seem to have reported on this new study. Should this study have been reported? Unclear. But every sector has kept you clueless this year about the massive over-spending which drives American health care. As of 2007, your country spent $7300 per person per year. France spent only $3600; Great Britain, Spain, Italy, Japan spent substantially less than that! But the entire American “press corps”—including progressive cable entertainers and clowns—have joined both major political parties in ignoring this astonishing story. The looting has stayed in the system! Everyone has rolled up his or her sleeves, helping maintain our astonishing level of spending. In the process, Keith makes five million—and Rachel makes one. May our corporate democracy thrive! To his credit, Olbermann briefly discussed this topic. But he didn’t discuss it well—and a series of clowns came next.

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• 29 Oct 2009 10:01

  WHEN OPINION KILLED! Of course you can challenge opinion journalism. Sometimes, opinion kills: THURSDAY, OCTOBER 29, 2009 Kristol runs the rubes: William Kristol ran the rubes. E.J. Dionne wouldn’t tattle. We refer to Kristol’s column in Tuesday’s Washington Post. In it, the tyro typed thusly. We start with a triumphal headline: KRISTOL (10/27/09): A good time to be a conservative Bien-pensant conservative elites and establishment-friendly Republican big shots yearn for a more moderate, temperate and sophisticated Republican Party. It's not likely to happen. And probably just as well. The Gallup poll released Monday shows the public's conservatism at a high-water mark. Some 40 percent of Americans call themselves conservative, compared with 36 percent who self-describe as moderates and 20 percent as liberals. The conservative number is as high as it's been in the two decades that Gallup has been asking the question. Cracker, please! the analysts cried, after checking Gallup’s data (). At best, Kristol’s highlighted claim is grossly misleading. At worst, it’s simply wrong. Kristol’s basic cumbers are accurate. In the recent Gallup survey, 40 percent described themselves as “conservative;” only 20 percent said “liberal.” But Gallup’s graphic shows the question being asked every year since 1992—and “conservative” scored a bit higher back then. (1992: 43 percent. 1994: 42 percent.) Based on the Gallup graphic, this week’s 40 percent is not “as high as it’s been in two decades.” It isn’t Gallup’s “high-water mark.” A second point is much more relevant. This week’s “40 percent” is a stunningly typical score. In the public’s response to this annual question, “conservative” came in at 40 percent in the following years: 1996, 1997, 1998, 1999, 2000, 2001, 2003 and 2004. In 2002 and 2005, “conservative” suffered a pair of down years, coming in at 39 percent. In the past few years, “conservative” dipped as low at 37 percent, no doubt in response to the foreign and domestic disasters associated with the presidency of a self-described conservative. But responses to this annual question have been remarkably consistent from 1992 until now. Is this “a good time to be a conservative?” Maybe, maybe not. But Kristol was really running us rubes when he said and implied, at the start of his monthly column, that the current Gallup number represents an exciting, two-decade “high-water mark.” The Post’s editors should have made him rewrite his claims, which are grossly misleading. Meanwhile, to watch Dionne soft-soap Kristol’s flat misstatement, you know what to do—just click here. Kristol, you see, is part of the club. As in 1999 and 2000, Dionne isn’t willing to tell you the truth about his frat-mates’ deceptions. (Kristol’s current deception won’t make much difference. In those earlier years, the endless deceptions Dionne accepted changed the history of the world.) Final point: Should liberals be troubled by the long-term pattern in Gallup’s polling? Maybe, maybe not. Dionne links to a study which shows left and right pretty much drawing even if respondents are given four choices, not two. (Liberal, progressive, conservative, libertarian.) But 40 percent is a whole lot of people. Rather than directing our most churlish poseurs to mock and insult these mal-pensants, liberals might consider trying to learn how these people view the world—the better to persuade them that our own bright ideas are the best. (To the extent that we have such ideas, the analysts asked us to add.) PART 3—WHEN OPINION KILLED: Jesus, we’re stupid! At least, that’s what the analysts cried as they watched Sunday’s , in which everyone—including the host, the liberal and the professor—seemed to stampede off to take their conceptual cues from Fox (see ). Of course, the analysts had torn their hair the same way as they watched Friday’s Maddow Show. On that show, Our Own Rhodes Scholar also offered an utterly woeful analysis. What’s the matter with Fox? On Friday, Maddow’s analysis was astoundingly weak (see THE DAILY HOWLER, 10/28/09). And it largely followed the official Fox line, in which we’ve been told that it’s utterly foolish to criticize “opinion programming.” In which an utterly silly distinction is drawn between “news” and “opinion”—between reporting and commentary. On Sunday, the liberal, the professor and the host all pretty much seemed to buy the Fox line. But so had Maddow, on Friday night! Jesus, we’re stupid! the analysts cried. It’s no wonder we never win arguments! Let’s review: At the highest level of the liberal/Dem world, the White House recently entered the world of political press criticism. But we will never win these fights if we can’t analyze things more clearly—if we can’t help people understand what is wrong with the work that is done at Fox. That said, let’s say this: Opinion kills! Let’s recall a time when that happened: On February 5, 2003, Colin Powell marched grandly off to address the United Nations. These days, Maddow falls all over herself, fawning over the wonderful patriot (Lawrence Wilkerson) who assembled the secretary’s presentation. (Where do we get these people?) But then, with her mad Powell-love, Maddow apes the bulk of Serious Opinion in the days after the great leader spoke. In real time, Powell’s presentation was strikingly weak; in the fuller bloom of history, his presentation turned out to be wrong in its most important claims. But so what? At the Washington Post, a string of fawning opinion writers took a number and stood in line, each one hoping to top the others in fealty to the great general. (See THE DAILY HOWLER, 2/14/03—Valentine's Day, one observes.) “I’m Persuaded,” said the headline on Mary McGrory’s column on February 6, the day after Powell spoke. But then, Richard Cohen and William Raspberry also stampeded off to say how brilliantly Powell had proven his case about Iraq’s WMD. These claims all appeared in columns. Coming from famous “liberal” columnists, they clinched the public case for war: MCGRORY (2/6/03): I don't know how the United Nations felt about Colin Powell's "J'accuse” speech against Saddam Hussein. I can only say that he persuaded me, and I was as tough as France to convince. COHEN (2/6/03): The evidence he presented to the United Nations—some of it circumstantial, some of it absolutely bone-chilling in its detail—had to prove to anyone that Iraq not only hasn't accounted for its weapons of mass destruction but without a doubt still retains them. Only a fool—or possibly a Frenchman—could conclude otherwise. RASPBERRY (2/10/03): It was a spectacular performance, and by the time Colin Powell was finished, I was a complete convert. I had my doubts as to how much active production of weapons of mass destruction was happening in Iraq. Powell's display removed those doubts. In fairness, McGrory and Raspberry said they weren’t ready for war. (“Yet,” each columnist added.) But amid embarrassing fawning to Powell—not unlike Maddow’s fawning to Wilkerson—the Post’s liberal columnists stampeded off to insist that he’d proven the case about WMD. In this way, the route to war was sealed. And yes, these faulty, fawning judgments were rendered in opinion columns. That segment on Reliable Sources? An utter, embarrassing joke. But so too for Maddow’s Friday “analysis,” which seemed to say that Fox News would be A-OK if they’d just dump those Tea Party promos. (Where do we get these people?) Simple story: If this is the best we liberals can manage, we are doomed to many more decades of pitiful, clownish defeat. The other side got into the business of press critique long ago, during the Kennedy/Nixon era. They have argued their claims long and diligently—sometimes with justice, quite often without. But by now, they have helped create a world in which many people assume that they’re getting the “liberal” line when they watch the mainstream press. In part, the other side’s claims have worked quite well because they’ve been framed by highly skilled people—by professional persuaders who know what they’re doing, even when they attempt to deceive. On our side, it works a bit differently. When we finally get into the chase, we can’t even explain what’s the matter with Fox! If they’d only drop those Tea Party promos, Fox would be A-OK! We’d planned to go further with this series, but let’s leave it at this: Maddow’s analysis was a joke, like a great deal of her work. On Sunday, HuffPo’s Pitney was pitiful too. If the liberal world is prepared to accept this level of functioning, the liberal world is standing in line for decades more of what we have had—pathetic, persistent defeat. At present, the liberal world couldn’t sell ice at the equator. If you doubt that, just watch our floundering in the health care “debate,” despite the utterly ludicrous state of American health care. (This is a failure which stretches back decades. It doesn’t just fall on Obama’s shoulders. And it doesn’t just fall on our politicians. To a greater extent, it falls on our “intellectual leaders,” who are so adept at standing in line for jobs at the Washington Post.) One difference: In the future, we’ll be able to watch our “liberal” shows and laugh about Bush’s motivational speeches—without being forced to hear that Bill Clinton (and apparently Jimmy Carter) took part in these seminars too. (On our liberal opinion programs, our hosts are careful to pick and choose the things we’re forced to hear.) But we will lose, and lose, and lose again, if we can’t frame our arguments better. We’ll have Big Fun as we snark to ourselves. The outside world will roll on. Let’s review: When the White House hit Fox, Fox began spinning. They offered an utterly silly distinction: You can’t criticize opinion programming! It must be the dumbest distinction ever hatched. And all around the liberal firmament, our reps ran out and bought it. Crackers! Of course you can criticize opinion programming! You can do so in almost every way you criticize news reporting! You can criticize it when it presents false facts. You can criticize it when it picks-and-chooses its accurate facts. You can criticize it when it focuses on silly topics. You can criticize it when it spreads hysteria about things which really do matter. (School sex clinics in every school! Run by Planned Parenthood! With secret abortions!) You can even criticize “opinion journalism” when it calls 40 percent a “high-water mark!” Everyone knows this—until Fox speaks. But alas! When Fox spoke a few weeks ago, we acted as if its silly distinction was—dare we say?—on loan from God. Fox spoke—and your world recited! It’s how your world studies to lose.

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• 28 Oct 2009 07:58

  TREET LEGAL! Fox can (pretty much) do what it wants, Maddow oddly proclaimed: WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 28, 2009 It’s all about the benjamins: In Tuesday’s New York Times, Bill Carter reported the latest cable news ratings, which show CNN sinking in prime time. That said, we were struck, as we often are, by one part of Carter’s approach: http: CARTER (10/27/09): Fox dominates the news channel ratings in prime time, with its opinion-based programs, hosted by Bill O'Reilly and Sean Hannity, at the top. But its newscasts are also far ahead of CNN programs. Its 7 p.m. show, anchored by Shepard Smith, regarded as a nonideological program, dwarfs every CNN show in prime time. In October, Mr. Smith averaged 465,000 viewers among the 25- to 54-year-old audience that news sells to advertisers. Lou Dobbs on CNN was fourth in the hour, with 162,000, edged by Ms. Velez-Mitchell on HLN with 166,000. MSNBC's Chris Matthews and ''Hardball'' was second with 179,000 viewers. At 10 p.m., Mr. Cooper had 211,000 viewers, to 223,000 for Mr. Olbermann's repeat. Ms. Van Susteren had 538,000 viewers, and Ms. Grace averaged 222,000. For the month, CNN averaged 202,000 viewers, ages 25 to 54. That was far behind the dominant leader, Fox, which averaged 689,000. But it also trailed MSNBC which had 250,000 viewers in that group and HLN, which had 221,000 viewers. The only CNN program from 7 to 10 p.m. that did not finish last was Larry King, who was third. Mr. Hannity was first and Rachel Maddow on MSNBC second. There’s some very weak editing there. (What time is Larry King on? CNN “averaged 202,000 viewers” when? All day? Throughout prime time?) But we were struck by Carter’s (conventional) decision to report these programs’ ratings only “among the 25- to 54-year-old audience that news sells to advertisers.” The suits—the money-changers—care most about them, because they’re most likely to buy worthless products. But why should Carter adopt that preference? In fact, “the 25- to 54-year-old audience that news sells to advertisers” represents a surprisingly slender slice of these programs’ overall audience. For example: This Monday evening, 330,000 viewers in that age group watched Countdown. But the program’s overall audience was much larger: 1.1 million. Ditto for Monday’s O’Reilly Factor. The program had 998,000 viewers in “the 25- to 54-year-old audience that news sells to advertisers.” But the program’s overall audience was 3.6 million. (For full data, click here.) Money-grubbing network suits care about the prize demographic. So do anchors ,who want to maintain the pleasing salaries which reflect their societal worth. But why should Carter adopt that preference? Why should Times readers be so directed? That preference is all about selling products. What about the larger societal interest? What about the way these programs move news and information? The people Carter focuses on are most likely to buy worthless products. For that reason, the suits—and the anchors—prize their eyeballs. But the people Carter omits from his story are in some cases more likely to vote. What is cable news mainly about in the mind of a scribe like Carter? Is cable news about the spread of information to voters? Or is it about the sale of soap products? Carter, in a conventional move, walks through that second door. Special report: Opinion kills! PART 2—STREET LEGAL: In the beginning, we all got the word. And the word came to us straight from Fox. The White House had said that they weren’t a real news org. In the New York Times, Brian Stelter reported their push-back. “Fox contends that the administration is confusing its news programs with its opinion programming,” Stelter reported: STELTER (10/12/09): Fox argues that its news hours—9 a.m. to 4 p.m. and 6 to 8 p.m. on weekdays—are objective.... “The average consumer certainly knows the difference between the A section of the newspaper and the editorial page,” [Fox spokesperson Michael] Clemente said. And so verily, we got the word from Fox. Their news reports are objective, Fox said. And the rest of the programs are just opinion! It’s just opinion! Who cares? By last Sunday, on Reliable Sources, the whole wide world was taking turns reciting this utterly foolish distinction (see THE DAILY HOWLER, 10/27/09). Everybody seemed to say or imply the same thing: It doesn’t really make sense to criticize opinion programs. This is an utterly ludicrous claim—and it came to us straight outta Fox. But everyone—the liberal, the professor and the host—seemed to endorse what Fox said. Are opinion programs ripe for criticism? Of course they are! Except when the whole world is channeling Fox, such programs operate under most of the rules which govern straight news reporting. Indeed, people criticize opinion programs—and opinion columns—all the bloomin’ time. They do this because opinion programs can commit a wide range of sins: Opinion programs can spread false facts. Opinion programs can omit relevant facts. Opinion programs can direct our focus to trivial issues. Opinion programs can traffic in nasty insult. Opinion programs can play to fear—can traffic in the types of hysterical claims which undermine public discussion. Opinion programs can break many rules. But go ahead! Find the person, on Sunday’s show, who showed any sign of knowing. Alas! It’s hard to build a serious critique of Fox when everyone traffics in silly FoxThink. But go ahead! Read Sunday’s transcript! See if you can find a place where anyone stated what’s blindingly obvious: Opinion shows, just like news shows, are subject to basic journalistic rules about accuracy, fairness and sensible focus. Opinion shows, just like news show, can destroy the public discourse. Sunday’s discussion was stunningly weak. But then, on Friday night’s Rachel Maddow Show, Maddow also seemed to be getting her theories about these matters straight from Fox. Maddow devoted a complete segment to her views about why Fox ain’t a news org. Some of what she said made sense. But in many ways, it was pure primal FoxThink. “Is Fox a news station?” Maddow asked. (To read the full transcript, click this.) In this, the start of her rumination, her statements still made basic sense: MADDOW (10/23/09): Is Fox a news station? The answer to that is unrelated to the question of whether and which Fox hosts and correspondents express their opinion about the news. It is possible to express an opinion about the news and still cover the news responsibly. That is correct. Individual journalists can express their opinions—and still report the news responsibly. A news station can present opinion in one part of the broadcast day—and present good news reporting elsewhere. Opinion and news can even be mingled in a single program! But then too, there are about a million ways in which a news channel can produce poisoned opinion programming—programming which traffics in bogus facts, trivial topics, hysterical frameworks and language. Maddow never said a word about any of these basic problems—problems which often obtain on her program. Instead, she moved ahead to her own nuanced view of why Fox ain’t a news station: MADDOW: Expressing an opinion about the news does not negate one’s status as a news reporter or as a correspondent or as a news anchor. The expression of opinion about the news is not the difference between Fox and the rest of the news media. The difference between Fox and news is that Fox is now actively organizing and promoting a protest movement against the U.S. government. GLENN BECK (videotape): Celebrate with Fox News. This is what we’re doing next Wednesday. MADDOW: That was a promo run on Fox in advance of the tax day tea party protests. I say it was a promo, not an ad, because no one paid Fox to run that. The network produced it themselves, promoting as a news network protests against the government, and helping to organize them both on their Web site and on the air. Maddow is right. It was unusual when Fox, and Beck, played such an active role in promoting a political protest. (We’ll avert our gaze from Maddow’s repeated odd phrase, “against the U.S. government.”) But in this passage, Maddow said her last words about any other offences which are committed by Fox’s opinion programs. As she finished her analysis, you might think that Fox would be A-OK if it would just drop the Tea Party bull-crap: MADDOW: The difference between Fox and news is not that Fox has hired personalities and executives and producers who share and express an opinion about the news, that they share an ideology. Opinion has always been a kissing cousin to news, and one man’s ideology is another man’s objective passion. The difference between Fox and news, the way in which one of these [news organization] is not like the others, is that only one of these organizations is organizing anti-government street protests. There’s nothing wrong with that. It’s perfectly legal as far as I know. It just makes Fox an opposition political outlet to the Democratic Party and the Obama White House rather than a normal news channel. [...] This is a story that most of the media has gotten wrong so far. By not only defending Fox as if Fox is just a news network that has a right-wing point of view, but by ignoring what Fox does as a network that has nothing to do with the news. It’s a free country and Fox can do what it wants. God bless them and keep them. But it would frankly be strange, it would be weird for the White House, for the U.S. government to treat a group that is organizing protests and rallies against it as if that group is just covering the news. It’s not. One of these things is really not like the other. Maddow returned to her weird complaints about “anti-government street protests.” But good grief! “It’s a free country and Fox can do what it wants?” This was a thoroughly hopeless “analysis,” offered at the very top of the alleged “progressive” news world. Fox of course can do what it wants—as long as what it does is “legal.” But surely, no one would claim that opinion programs—or opinion columns—can only be criticized when they break the law! But in her presentation, Maddow presented no standard for judging an opinion program as long as it doesn’t break the law or promote “anti-government” protests. This was a remarkably weak analysis—an analysis which largely furthered the utterly silly distinction initially put forward by Fox. Sorry. The liberal world will never create a winning critique of Fox as long as we’re burdened with analyses like this—like that which seemed to rule the day on Sunday’s Reliable Sources. “Opinion has always been a kissing cousin to news?” Yes, that’s true—and that’s why opinion journalism must play by most of the same basic rules which regulate news reporting. Of course, Maddow herself enjoys breaking those rules, which may have tilted her theoretic. We’ll return to that awkward point on Friday, as we scan some recent opinion programming on MSNBC. Tomorrow, a look at Fox, on a night when it wasn’t breaking the law—when it wasn’t “promoting a protest movement against the U.S. government.” We’ll look at Fox on a night when Sean Hannity may have been pushing a pile of pure crap. No, he wasn’t breaking the law. Can that really be our sole standard?

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• 24 Oct 2009 10:08

  SPORT OF THE GODS! Once again, the New York Times op-ed page supports an ancient notion: SATURDAY, OCTOBER 24, 2009 Sport of the gods: “I wonder as I wander,” Langston Hughes mused. Here at THE HOWLER, we sometimes wonder if human life is just a vast practical joke—a joke played on us by the gods. That’s what Homer seemed to believe. Through the millenia, his work has “had legs.” Is it possible Homer was right? We wondered this morning when we read Joanne Lipman’s op-ed piece in the New York Times. Much of her column is well worth considering—especially the paragraph comparing Glenn Beck to Keith Olbermann. But the column appeared in our nation’s most famous newspaper. And its author reasoned like this: LIPMAN (10/24/09): And yet during the last few years, I couldn’t help but notice that the situation for women as a whole wasn’t improving, and was even getting worse. Consider the facts: When I graduated from college in 1983, women earned only 64 cents for every dollar earned by a man. Today? Women earn just 77 cents. By other measures, women’s gains have stalled: board seats and corporate officer posts have been flat—or declined in recent years. More proof: According to the American Bar Association, women in 2008 made up almost half of all associates, but only 18.3 percent of partners. Only 15 women run Fortune 500 companies. Lipman says that women’s situation hasn’t been improving in recent years—or has even been getting worse. Her evidence? Where women once earned 64 cents on the dollar, they now “earn just 77!” In her next breath, she claims that the number of women’s board seats has declined in recent years. Her sentence defines this decline in seats as evidence that “women’s gains have stalled.” Meanwhile, the “proof” she presents in that last paragraph includes no evidence about whether things are getting better or worse. But then, none of the facts Lipman considers shows the situation getting worse—except her claim about board seats, which she doesn’t quantify or source. Does the New York Times still employ editors? This puzzling passage appears on the op-ed page of our leading newspaper—perhaps the most valuable journalistic real estate in this nation. On the same page, Charles Blow devotes his twice-monthly column to the question of Michelle Obama’s favorability ratings. On Hardball, Blow seems like a very nice guy. But what, the New York Times worry? (By the way: Blow’s graphic actually shows a major drop in Michelle Obama’s favorability rating. To us, this drop would be surprising and sad, if real. But what, the New York Times worry? Blow ignores his gloomy graphic in his upbeat text.) Is human life a joke of the gods? Often, when we consider the facts, evidence that we aren’t caught in a joke seems, at best, to have stalled.

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• 22 Oct 2009 23:04

  FOR LACK OF A PRESS CORPS! Davey’s liberal use of soft soap continued a growing tradition: THURSDAY, OCTOBER 22, 2009 Why health reform is such a struggle: In one way, two recent polls about health care reform are just astoundingly bad. According to the latest Washington Post/ABC poll, “45 percent of Americans favor the broad outlines of the proposals now moving in Congress, while 48 percent are opposed.” A new poll by CNN/Gallup has it even: 49-49. That doesn’t mean that health reform won’t pass. Given the ludicrous state of American health care, it does reveal an unfortunate fact: In your country, there is nothing that even dimly resembles a progressive politics. Given the ludicrous state of the nation’s health care, it’s stunning to think that the liberal/Democratic Party world can’t produce better numbers than that. That brings us to the latest non-correction correction on last night’s Maddow Show. Rachel Maddow opened the show with an utterly pointless topic. She did an interview with Tamara Lowe, executive vice president of the Get Motivated Seminars Incorporated. Why was Maddow wasting viewers’ time on this topic? Here’s why: George W. Bush is going to speak at two upcoming Get Motivated events. On Tuesday night, Maddow had devoted an entire segment to ridiculing this ludicrous notion. (To watch that segment, .) But on Wednesday night, she opened with Lowe—and soon took part in one of her program’s familiar non-correction corrections. As Maddow opened, she offered this fawning treatment of the motivational program she had mocked just one night before. To watch the full segment, MADDOW (10/21/09): But we begin tonight with an exclusive guest who is head of what’s really become an American phenomenon and an American empire. Tamara Lowe and her husband Peter have been producing the Get Motivated Business Seminars for more than 25 years. These are huge events. The Lowes travel the country with a rotating roster of A-list star speakers, including athletes and entertainers and politicians. They typically take out full-page ads, like this one, in local newspapers ahead of their events. The events are typically so large, they take place in arenas attended by anywhere between 10,000 and 50,000 people for a single event. In fact so many people attend these seminars that some local news outlets warn of, and later report on, massive traffic jams caused simply by the seminar being in a city for a specific day. Get Motivated is a major organization. Millions of Americans have taken part in their seminars On Tuesday night, this organization was cause for scorn. By Wednesday night, it had become “an American phenomenon”—a “major organization” whose “huge events” feature “a rotating roster of A-list star speakers.” Why the ginormous change in tone? Perhaps because of the non-correction correction which occurred as soon as Lowe opened her mouth. After a bit more fawning about Lowe’s greatness, this was Maddow’s first question: MADDOW: What do you expect that President Bush will be speaking about? Do you expect that it will be a political speech? LOWE: Usually, the former presidents who speak for us—and President Bush will be our sixth former U.S. president to speak at the Get Motivated Seminar—typically, they will share their experiences of their time in office and the things that they learned, the challenges that they faced. Oops. On Tuesday, Maddow’s viewers got to laugh at how ridiculous and demeaning it was to think that Bush would take part in such an event. Last night, if you were listening carefully, you seemed to learn that Bush is the sixth straight former president to do so. (This takes us all the way back through Ford.) A bit later, Maddow endorsed what Lowe had said, referring to the way “you have had so many former presidents.” Uh-oh! In fact, President Clinton has headlined at least one of Lowe’s events, in 2001. So, it would seem from our cursory research, has President Carter. But then, the organization’s web site, which Maddow said she had scanned at length on Tuesday, states that presidents Reagan and Bush 41 had also spoken at events. On Tuesday night, Maddow didn’t mention such facts when she helped us rollick about the remarkable fact that Bush 43 would do such an event. Clinton and Carter have spoken too. You weren’t required to know that. After Lowe was allowed to correct the record, Maddow proceeded rather weirdly. She asked a series of accusatory questions which she said were based on e-mails she had received from unnamed viewers. This is a very strange way to conduct journalistic research—and in this, the last of Maddow’s accusatory queries, she made no attempt to ask Lowe an obvious question: MADDOW: A member of the military wrote to us...specifically talking about your motivational speech at an event she went to in California, and I’m just going to quote from the letter we received. "It was heavy into religion. She informed us that we can`t be happy or healthy without Jesus. I was trapped there for roughly half an hour of preaching. I was mortified that I had been tricked into attending essentially a religious service and appalled that the military had unwittingly sanctioned the event for me and hundreds of others. “I secured the Web page—I scoured the Web page that evening, wondering if my surprise was from lack of research. I found no mention of religion at all, which seems as subversive as promoting this to the military as a leadership forum by not mentioning faith-based or some other code word on the site. I assume their purpose is to grab an unsuspecting audience for religious indoctrination." I, because of that— This is a member of the military who’s Jewish, who was upset about having been felt like they’re part of an evangelical event. Is there—is there a diversity of faith-based views that are portrayed? Or is it— or is—I know that you’re saying that it’s not a religious event. But is there diversity among speakers in faith? LOWE: Oh, absolutely, absolutely. We have featured all kinds of people on our program. Everybody from Rabbi Harold Kushner to—really, people from every kind of religious persuasion, Suze Orman, who is Jewish, but also has Eastern beliefs. And Mormons and Hindus, and you name it, have appeared at our events. We don’t just feature people from one persuasion, that’s the great thing about the Get Motivated Seminars, is it really features people who are at the apex of success from every—from every field, from every viewpoint, from every world view. But was the e-mailer correct in the charge Maddow read on the air? Does Lowe inform participants that they “can’t be happy or healthy without Jesus?” Lowe kept shaking her head as this text was read—but Maddow didn’t ask her! And then, in the end, she turned to a typical trick she plays on people like Lowe: MADDOW (continuing directly): Tamara Lowe, co-founder and executive vice president of Get Motivated Seminars. I’m sure this is an uncomfortable interview for you, an uncomfortable setting. I know that it was a big deal for you to join us tonight. I really, I’m thankful for your time. LOWE: No, not at all. I’m very comfortable. I’m very happy to be on your show—big fan. Lowe hadn’t shown the slightest sign of being uncomfortable during the interview. But Maddow likes to play this game with guests of whom she culturally disapproves. After failing to lay a glove on such people, she likes to pretend, with comments like this, that she has batted them all about town. Apparently, we’re supposed to believe that that’s what we have seen happen. How does this relate to those health reform numbers? With all this silly nonsense, Maddow was handing us liberal comfort food, the enduring staple of her program. (Last night’s program was larded with the delicacy.) On Tuesday night, young progressives got to imagine that they are much smarter and morally better than the utterly silly people who stage these motivational events—the people to whom Maddow fawned one night later. At Hullabaloo, Tristero thought Maddow was mocking the people who attend these events (click here). That wasn’t our take on Tuesday’s segment, but many of Tristero’s commenters quickly stepped in to declare that such people actually are deeply stupid—and of course, much less moral than we liberals are. On balance, of course, the people who attend these events are no dumber than us dumb-bunny liberals—we who can’t even convince the public of the need for health reform, despite the utterly ludicrous state of American health care. But we liberals have always enjoyed pretending that we’re better than average Joe rubes. This is pleasurable liberal sport. But it’s dumb on the merits—and it’s very bad politics. Why are those polling numbers so bad, despite the ludicrous state of our health care? Because the liberal world is gigantically inept—even as we laugh at the values and the intelligence of average people. And alas! The people who attend those events are, in many cases, the people who hold those poll numbers down. On Maddow, you are often invited to laugh at those people—until Maddow has to go on the air with the latest non-correction correction. Maddow failed to tell it straight Tuesday night. Every president has done these events, not just comical Bush. She failed to be forthright in setting the record straight on Wednesday evening. But the key problem here is the sheer waste of time involved in silly segments like these—and the noxious attitude these segments may breed in the ranks of young liberals. For decades, we liberal hayseeds have loved to laugh at the average American rubes. And we’re too dumb to see the way that connects to those bad polling numbers. Given the ludicrous state of our heath care, those polling numbers are astoundingly bad. They stand as an indictment of our capabilities. To be honest, we liberals just aren’t all that bright—although we’ve always preferred to observe this trait in The Other. Final note: Maddow sometimes does very good work. We think she does this sort of stuff a bit more. Special report: The soft soap files! Be sure to read each installment: Monica Davey broke out the soft soap. Be sure to read each installment: PART 1: The New York Times broke out the soft soap for a front-page profile of Bachmann. See . PART 2: Monica Davey refused to describe the weird things Bachmann has said. See THE DAILY HOWLER, 10/21/09. And now, for our thrilling conclusion: PART 3—FOR LACK OF A PRESS CORPS: Why do some people “loathe” Michelle Bachmann? Why have Democrats accused the lady of “reckless lies,” “outrageous claims?” Truth to tell, New York Times never found out in Monica Davey’s profile. Alas! Davey took out a tub of soft soap and softened Bachmann’s most unusual statements, speeches and interviews. What’s the big fuss about Michelle Bachmann? Why are Democrats saying those things? By the time Davey got through with her profile, it was hard for a reader to say. But then, this is now established practice in the dying enterprise once known as a “press corps.” The mainstream press corps routinely runs and hides from conservative figures like Bachmann. Presumably, news orgs don’t want the heat from the right that a more accurate profile might bring. But whatever the motive might be, it is now established practice to clean up the most unusual statements of such figures—the statements for which these people are “loved” by some, and “loathed” by others. Examples: In July 2002, Ann Coulter published Slander, her first major best-seller. The book was larded with howling errors—unless you read the review of the book in the New York Times (see THE DAILY HOWLER, 7/22/02). In that review, Janet Maslin simply counted up Coulter’s endless footnotes, then used their large number (780) as proof of the lady’s assiduous research. (Maslin: “A great deal of research supports Ms. Coulter’s wisecracks.”) For ourselves, we checked out the substance behind these footnotes. Alas. Coulter had misrepresented what her sources had said, again and again—and again. Earth to Maslin: The fact that a footnote accompanies a claim doesn’t mean that the claim is accurate—except when the mighty Times uses soft soap in discussing an oddball conservative. In 2005, Coulter was back with her latest effort, Treason—and Time magazine published a fawning, two-week Valentine to her remarkable greatness (see THE DAILY HOWLER, 4/19/05). John Cloud was really seeing no evil. This was one of his silliest statements: CLOUD (4/25/05): Coulter has a reputation for carelessness with facts, and if you Google the words "Ann Coulter lies," you will drown in results. But I didn't find many outright Coulter errors. Many others did find those errors. Time hadn’t tried very hard. Just last month, this soft-soap practice continued when Time put Glenn Beck on its cover. Here too, the magazine’s David von Drehle seemed to work very hard to spin down Beck’s groaning misstatements. Maybe he borrowed some of Davey’s soft soap! For Jamison Foser’s treatment of this soft-soap piece, click this. Anything sound familiar here? Von Drehle “omits Beck's most shocking and outrageous statements,” Foser correctly notes. In short, Davey’s soft-soap treatment of Bachmann is very much par for the course. The reason for this is awkward but clear: Simply put, your nation lacks a mainstream press corps with journalistic values. No, it wasn’t Davey’s job to say what she thought of Bachmann’s speeches and statements—for example, of the speech Bachmann made in the House, in which she seemed to say that the health reform bill would establish “school sex clinics” run by Planned Parenthood in which 13-year-old girls would be given abortions, with her parents none the wiser. It wasn’t really Davey’s job to say what she thought of this remarkable speech—but it was her job to describe it. (Many people “love” Bachmann for such speeches.) Alas! Davey avoided describing the sweep of the speech, leaving Times readers barefoot and clueless. She refused to describe the vast sweep of Bachmann’s assertions about those”sex clinics.” In the process, she spared herself from having to fact-check Bachmann’s remarkable claims. In this, and in various other ways, she therefore refused to tell Times readers what the big fuss is about. Let’s put it another way: Davey refused to be a journalist. Forget what Davey might think of Bachmann. She refused to describe the statements and speeches which have created the big major fuss around this controversial figure. And by the way: She also refused to quote major Democrats explaining they “loathe” Bachmann—explaining why they have accused her of “outrageous claims,” “reckless lies.” Surely, it wouldn’t have been very hard to find a major national Democrat willing to explain the problem as Democrats see it. Late in her profile, Davey did manage to quote two Minnesotans. They give us a fleeting look at the real problem with Bachmann, as many Dems would see it DAVEY (10/15/09): One of her Democratic opponents next year, Maureen Reed, said Ms. Bachmann ''injects fear and anger in people, and people don't solve problems well when they're fearful and angry.'' Ms. Reed said her goal was to ''dial down the fear, dial down the anger.'' Constance Carlson, a resident of Buffalo, seemed ready for such a change. ''I try to avoid listening to her,'' Ms. Carlson said of Ms. Bachmann. ''Some of her comments are just distracting, conspiracy-type stuff.'' “I'd much rather hear her say, 'I don't agree and here's my solution,' '' she added. But others here say they wonder whether a Democrat really has a chance. ''She fits this district well,'' said King Banaian, a Bachmann supporter in St. Cloud. ''I think there are a lot of people who want straight talk and she appeals to them.” [end of profile] What exactly did Reed mean when she said that Bachmann “instills fear and anger in people?” What did Carlson mean when she mentioned the “conspiracy-type stuff?” Due to Davey’s liberal use of soft soap, New York Times readers really had little way to know. Indeed, Davey offered a companion “fact check” to her profile. But from the Democratic perspective, the problem isn’t Bachmann’s errors. It’s her encouragement of paranoiac reactions—her encouragement of conspiracy thinking. You do have to know that her facts are wrong. But the problem goes well beyond that. A reader might have understood Reed and Carlson’s comments—if Davey had described Bachmann’s remarkable speech about those “school sex clinics.” But Davey didn’t describe that speech. Instead, she got out her tub of soft soap and scrubbed down what Bachmann had said. In this way, King Banaian—who thinks that Bachmann is providing “straight talk”—was protected from the need to make a fuller appraisal. Did Bachmann provide “straight talk” in that speech? Or was she promoting “fear” and “conspiracy?” Sorry! New York Times readers can’t judge that question, because Monica Davey worked hard, on page one, to avoid what Bachmann had said. It’s easier when news orgs play it this way; presumably, it saves them grief from the right. On the down side, it means that you don’t really have a press corps—haven’t had one for a very long time.

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